Putting your courage to the sticking place...

I confess - I didn't come up with the title of this blog. My friend Lauren did, only she didn't know it at the time.

I've been talking about it for awhile, and Friday was the day that I finally made good on my promise to shave my head if I raised $3,500 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I raised $3,726.38 with your help.

Leading up to the actual cut, I was freaking out. In some ways, it's not just hair - it's part of your identity. I was worried about how I would look. I had no idea what my head looked like - it could have been pointy for all I knew!

I cried on Friday. I had the thought that I shouldn't be crying - I chose to do this. But it's such a drastic change, and like any drastic change, it causes discomfort. Even as I told myself multiple times "it'll grow back".

Luckily, I had the right group of people there to keep me from losing it. Lauren took photos, Karen, Dawn, Laura and Carrie all cut ponytails, Michael and Jason were there for inappropriate humor, my coaches Bruce and Lynnae were there and Tori was awesome in getting my hair ready to cut and shave. Carrie also brought cupcakes.

This is shortly after I arrived at the salon. I think it was just after Michael walked in and said "You don't have to do this!" and his wife Lauren said "yes, you do".

Tori let me choose my smock, and since I have a zebra print scarf that I'm sure you'll see me in soon, I picked that one. She put my hair into about 12 ponytails.

Karen cut off a ponytail after trying to cut through it for a second or two.
















Lauren asked me to take a picture when there were just a few ponytails left. The bottom two at my neck were completely shaved off, so we could get the most hair to donate. We've also determined I may or may not resemble Harley Quinn in this photo.



Coaches Bruce and Lynnae showed up and we took a photo to show off our Team in Training gear!

The bag contains a LOT of hair. It's about 9 inches worth, and I swear each ponytail could be that of a small child. I knew my hair was thick, but holy cow! I'll be sending it to Children with Hair Loss as a donation.

At the end of the day, I didn't have to worry that I had a conehead (I don't) and sometimes, it just feels like I have my hair pulled back and it's wet. But the good news is, it takes a lot less time to air dry now!

So far, I've gone out in public with and without a scarf (mostly without). Part of my fear was how people would look at me without hair. But so far, I haven't noticed much of a difference. I had also worried about how some cancer survivors I know would respond to the gesture, but those fears have also been unfounded.

Granted, I'm sure there are people I know that think I'm nuts. And that's fine. Maybe I am. But I didn't do this for them, I did it to bring awareness to a cause that I care about. I did it despite my fear of being different. 

I turn the page to the next chapter, where I will raise $1,500 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and run the Grand Rapids Half Marathon in October. Check out my fundraising page here: http://pages.teamintraining.org/mi/GrdRpd13/aclock

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear." - Ambrose Redmoon

Avoiding a sunburned head

Right before my half marathon, I reached $3,500 raised for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Great, awesome, I made it $300 over my fundraising minimum. But there's more to it than that.

When I started fundraising, I was freaked out about how much I had to raise. I'd been able to raise smaller amounts before - more like maybe $500-$1000. But this was 3-5 times more! So when I started, I figured there needed to be something big to help get me to my goal.

And that's when I decided that I would shave my head if I reached $3,500. 

When I got to that point, it started to get real.

This is me, yesterday. I last had a haircut in September (I'm horrible about getting haircuts). I have really thick hair. I also let it air dry 99% of the time. It also keeps my head from getting sunburned (minus my part).

This coming Friday, I will put it in small ponytails, and have it shaved off.

I went this past week to a wig shop in Lansing and purchased scarves to wear once it's done. I'm sure there will be some days that I will wear a hat, or maybe no scarf at all. At the wig shop, I had let them know what I was up to when I walked in. There was another woman shopping too, and she told me that it would take about 8 months to grow back. Eek.

But here's the interesting part. I've been feeling a bit of anxiety of this. Not the actual shaving itself, but the aftermath. How people will look at me, what they will think about me and just how will I look to myself.

As I've been dealing with this, it's made me think about how the stress of worrying about your appearance and how others view you is additional stress that those dealing with chemotherapy deal with. You know, as though treatment, insurance and health issues aren't enough.

I can only hope that my experience shaving my head will bring some sort of awareness to what patients go through and help in raising money to find a cure.

I'll be running in the Metro Health Grand Rapids Half Marathon in October and will continue raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. My website is: http://pages.teamintraining.org/mi/GrdRpd13/aclock

13.1 miles later OR The Longest Blog I've Ever Written

There comes a point when you’re forced to do something that wasn’t in your life plan. For me, that happened back in the fall. I lost an election for something I had put a lot of my heart, soul, time and money into. In the aftermath, I wasn’t sure what the next step would be, but I had hoped it would be continuing to help the organization I felt so passionate about.

But, it wasn’t meant to be, as I was told that my services weren’t needed because people weren’t sure I would be able to work with them. I guess you could say that the door hit me in the ass on my way out.

Since I don’t tend to stay idle, I tried to figure out what I could do to fill the time. I had started running in March. I figured I could do that (in addition to a fairly new job, my first semester in grad school).

I would come across Team in Training, which raises money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The program has been in existence for 25 years and raises money to help fund research.

After some phone calls, I had decided to sign up for my first half marathon – the inaugural Nike Women’s Half Marathon in Washington, D.C. What did that mean? I had committed to raising $3,200 minimum and that would include my transportation, hotel and race entry. The remainder would go to LLS.

I started training in November, and have written about that throughout the process. This past weekend I traveled to Washington, D.C. to participate in the event.

It's hard to put the entire last weekend into words, but I'm going to try to do the best I can. I've decided to write two posts and give the Team in Training and race experience a blog of its own.

Prior to leaving, on Wednesday it became official that I would go over the $3,500 fundraising mark to shave my head. It was time to start thinking about planning that event, and I hope to have more details for that soon.

On Friday, I got up at 5am to make sure I made it to the Michigan Flyer for a 6:30am take off to Detroit. This was the first wise decision I made for the weekend - I would not have been happy driving that early or driving home on Monday! I got to the airport and met my group. The only person I knew was my coach who was joining us on the trip. Everyone else was new to me!

When we arrived, we tried to check into the hotel and had to wait for rooms. So we checked our luggage and then headed over to Georgetown for the Expo to pick up our race packets. It was pretty quick, since there weren't a lot of people in the area yet. The Expo was ok, but not great - I expected a lot more stuff to be there!

At the Expo

I ended up getting another donation on Friday night while I was at the MLK Memorial on the Moonlight Bus Tour we went on.

Saturday was a bunch of sightseeing, and then we had the Team in Training dinner at our hotel that night. It was a pasta buffet (go figure, carb loading) and included famous runners Shalane Flanagan, who placed 4^th at the Boston Marathon, and hurdler David Oliver.

It was at this dinner that I learned that there were over 2,300 TNT runners that raised over $6 million for LLS. I also learned that through the Nike events, $134 million had been raised for LLS. I saw people that have raised $70,000 over time through TNT. I saw survivors who were running the race with various teams. I realized that the busting my butt to fundraise and be able to run this distance was making a difference to others.

After dinner, our group got together for our last focus and details, and we also received our medals for raising $250 over our minimum.

We were also told that we had to be to the start line the next morning by 5:30am. Now, mind you, we had to take the metro, so that meant we met in the lobby of the hotel at 4:50am. I was able to get some sleep in, despite all the warnings that I would probably not sleep at all.

I don’t know if I can give much detail of the race in particular – mostly because I tend to tune out or not exactly know where I am for most of the time while running races. I am usually focusing on my breathing or getting to the end.

As a preface, I will never be a fast runner. I don’t know that I will ever pace quicker than 10:00 minutes/mile and that’s pushing it. I had hoped to finish in 2:40:00, but wasn’t sure what to expect.

There were 15,000 runners in this race. I estimated that because I had put myself in the 12:00-13:59 minutes/mile, I would end up crossing the start line around 10 minutes after the 7am start time.

That ended up being about right. Unfortunately, because the corrals were a bit loosey goosey, I got stuck behind a bunch of people that should have been behind me.

What I can tell you is that my music started with Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality” and I ended the race to “Stricken” by Disturbed. What came between was some Kelly Clarkson, O.A.R., Billy Idol, and Third Eye Blind, among other stuff.

I realized pretty early that my GPS screwed up under the 9^th Street Tunnel. I had clearly not run 2.14 miles by that point, since the race started about half a mile before that.

In the first part of the race, I dodged people, dealt with water stations that didn’t have pre-poured cups (which actually ended up being ALL the water stations in the first half of the race) and took a lot of photos. I know I lost time because of all these things. But it’s not every day that you get to run past the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Arlington Cemetery and the Kennedy Center.

To the Washington Monument

Past the Lincoln Memorial

Over the Bridge to Arlington

Toward the end in front of the Capitol

I had also set up automatic Facebook posts through the Nike website. They posted when I reached certain points throughout the race. In addition, there was live tracking, which showed where I was when I checked in at various points, and predicted where I would be at any given time. I heard it was a little Big Brother-ish to see.

Miles 6 through 9 were a bit difficult in that there were very few spectators cheering us on. We were running around the East Potomac Golf Course, which was a beautiful sight next to the water and had a great breeze. This was probably my favorite “weather” part of the course. I remember thinking a lot “where’s the ___ mile marker?” during this stretch of the course.

Luckily, someone had this awesome sign along the way:

Once I hit the 10 mile mark, I feel like I started walking a bit more – mostly because there was a hill to go up right around that point. I eventually made it to the aid station near mile 11 and realized I was close to Pennsylvania Ave. where the finish line was.

About halfway between miles 11 and 12, “25 Miles” by Edwin Starr came on. I remember that because I was just passing the Newseum, which I had visited the day before, on my way toward the Capitol. I definitely needed the “feet don’t fail me now” mentality then, because it was a tease to turn right when the finish line was just to the left. There were still close to 3 miles left.

I believe that Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way” came on next. That got me to about mile 12, which was just in front of the Capitol. It was about this time that I figured I better get moving. I rounded the last corner and came into the last stretch down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Now, there came a point where I thought "I'm close to the finish line, time to go faster." So I did. And then I realized I wasn't really that close to the finish line! So I took about a 10-15 second walk break, then ran the rest of the way to the finish line...and beyond. I just wanted to keep moving so I wouldn't cramp up.

At this point, you have to go through a line where they scanned our bibs. Then there was this:

Yes, that's a man in a tux (we were told the night before they would be ROTC), with a Tiffany blue box. Here's what was inside:

I grabbed food and ended up heading back over to the TNT tent (it was nice to have things like bag check and a separate area just for TNT participants) to see if any of my team was around. Once I found them, I stretched and tried to get out of the sun, since it felt like my face was burning (which it didn't).

Eventually, two of us went to the finish line. Members of my team mentioned that after all the TNT participants have finished, the staff and coaches cross the finish line.

Finish line around the 4 hour mark

TNT Coaches coming in

So, the result? 2:43:19.

It wasn't as fast as I had hoped, but as I said above, there were multiple reasons for that. Some where things I could control and some I couldn't and just had to figure out what to do about them.

At the end of the day, I did something that one year ago, I would have laughed at someone telling me that I would run a half marathon. Actually, something tells me that I may have done that. 

Through this crazy decision that I made, I found out that I could do something I never thought I could or would. But it has also helped me deal with the pain and rejection that I had been feeling in the fall. It gave me something to focus on. It showed me that there's something bigger for me out there.

When we got back to Detroit, my coach asked me if I was going to continue running. My answer to him was "of course". I had already been running before I signed up for TNT. I will continue to run in order to keep my sanity. I have no doubt that I will do another TNT event. When I get frustrated, I can go run. I've physically felt the best I've felt in the last few years. 

13.1 miles later, I don't have the answers, but I do know that I have a place to get away to when I need it.